Sustainability standards (also known as "sustainability guidelines") are agreed criteria by which the production, transportation and processing of particular bioenergy sources can be assessed for environmental, social and other values.

Sustainability standards and certification schemes can help consumers and others judge whether given products are "environmentally friendly" and should be purchased. This type of incentive has been useful in promoting improved environmental and social-economic performance for example, in the production of paper and wood through the Forest Stewardship Council and other certification systems.

The establishment of a Carbon Stewardship Council has been proposed. A credible and comprehensive system of sustainability standards for bioenergy is likely to be useful in promoting "environmentally friendly" biofuels and bioenergy, while discouraging the production of bioenergy that harms the environment and local communities.

The importance of this initiative is the wide cultivation of sugarcane and its possible impacts both positive and negative. Sugarcane is grown in 103 countries and accounts for 60-70% of sugar production, a figure which is expected to increase as world demand for ethanol increases. [1]

Green Gold Label

"The Green Gold Label programme is a certificate system for sustainable biomass. It covers production, processing, transport and final energy transformation. Green Gold Label (GGL) offers standards for specific parts of the supply chain, as well as standards for track&trace."

"Green Gold Label has been operational since 2001 as the global certificate for sustainable biomass."

Round Table on Responsible Soy Association

Round Table on Responsible Soy Association (RTRS): RTRS "is the global platform composed of the main soy value chain stakeholders with the common objective of promoting the responsible soy production through collaboration and dialogue among the involved sectors in order to foster a economical, social and environmental sustainability."[2]

Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil - "RSPO is an association created by organisations carrying out their activities in and around the entire supply chain for palm oil to promote the growth and use of sustainable palm oil through co-operation within the supply chain and open dialogue with its stakeholders."[3]

Sugarcane suppliers joining the program "must refuse the use of child or slave labor, limit their use of agrochemicals, and gather their cane with mechanical harvesters as opposed to cutting it manually. Manual cutting involves burning the plant's foliage, which pollutes the air."

"Production standards, which will come into force on August 30, were set by Organizacao Internacional Agropecuaria (OIA), a private company which provides inspection and certification services."[4]

EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED) "In April 2009, the Council of the European Union adopted a directive setting a common EU framework for the promotion of energy from renewable sources (Directive 2009/28/EC). The aim of this legislative act is to achieve by 2020 a 20% share of energy from renewable sources in the EU's final consumption of energy and a 10% share of energy from renewable sources in each member state's transport energy consumption." Source BEFSCI (PDF)

"The EU is considering legislation that is intended to ban the purchase of biofuels from energy crop plantations that are believed to harm the environment and lead to food shortages by displacing land used for food crops and contributing to rainforest deforestation."

"The report presents real life cases, from across the world, where the production of biofuel feed stocks is leading to the clearing of natural habitats. It examines the potential for future damage by analysing these case studies against the “sustainability standards” proposed by the European Commission, which are supposed only to allow “sustainable biofuels” to be allowed into the EU market."

"The major failing of the Commission proposal is that it ignores indirect effects of biofuel production such as increased consumption of EU oil-seed rape driving up demand for South-East Asian palm oil or UScorn ethanol subsidies driving soya expansion in the Amazon."[7]

International Sustainability & Carbon Certification (ISCC) is a multi-stakeholder process to develop an implementable certification scheme for sustainable biomass and bioenergy production and to test these in a process-oriented pilot phase. The ISCC is an initiative of the German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection through its Agency for Renewable Resources (Fachagentur Nachwachsende Rohstoffe – FNR). The ISCC is managed by Meó Corporate Development GmbH and involves stakeholders from market participants along the value chain, and NGOs and research institutes from different countries in Europe, the Americas, and South East Asia who discuss and develop sustainability criteria, standards, rules and procedures for the certification of biomass and its uses. Once the pilot phase is finished, it is planned that ISCC will become an international and independent organization that will be responsible for the certification of sustainable bioenergy and assessment of greenhouse gas balances for biofuels.

"Verified Sustainable Ethanol Initiative is an effort to physically guarantee Swedish consumers that they are filling up with good ethanol and to increase the offering of verified sustainable ethanol in close collaboration with the Braziliansugar industry."

Starting in 2008 the RTFO will "place an obligation on fuel suppliers to ensure that a certain percentage of their aggregate sales is made up of biofuels. The effect of this will be to require 5% of all UK fuel sold on UK forecourts to come from a renewable source by 2010."[2]

Biofuel producers will have to report on the green-house gas balance, and environmental impact of their biofuels.

This information will be used to develop sustainability standards, which may be imposed on any extension of the RTFO.[2]

"The LowCVP is a partnership of nearly 250 organisations from the automotive and fuel industries, the environmental sector, government, academia, road user groups and other organisations with a stake in the low carbon vehicles and fuels agenda."

"The Council on Sustainable Biomass Production (CSBP) is a multi-stakeholder organization established in 2007 to develop comprehensive voluntary sustainability standards for the production of biomass and its conversion to bioenergy."[8]

Related sustainability standards initiatives

Many organizations certify a range of products based on sustainability standards relevant to bioenergy.

"The complex interrelationships between bioenergy, poverty and food security are currently being analyzed in the context of the FAO’s Bioenergy and Food Security (BEFS) project, which is in the process of field-testing and refining a methodology to assess the impacts of bioenergy production on food security."

Biomass Mark

"The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries in Japan has advanced the promotion and use of biomass based on the “Biomass Nippon Strategy” which the Cabinet Council agreed to in December, 2002 and this strategy has triggered a Biomass Mark Program inauguration."

"The Biomass Mark is designed to be put on commodities which are produced using biomass totally or partly and is aimed to promote consumers’ use of biomass by their seeing this mark and recognizing that it is a biomass utilized commodity."

Ethanol and Sugar Impact Analysis (ESIA) ESIA Consulting "promotes more effective corporate social responsibility by using tools specifically designed for the sugar and ethanol sectors and the challenges presented to these by globalization." [9]

"In 2001, Protected Harvest was established as an independent certification organization, with the principal mission of advancing and certifying the use of sustainableagriculture practices through the development of stringent, transparent, and quantifiable standards."

Midwest U.S. landscape change to 2020 driven by biofuel mandates by Megan Mehaffey, Elizabeth Smith, and Rick Van Remortel, January 2012. "Meeting future biofuel targets set by the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) will require a substantial increase in production of corn. The Midwest, which has the highest overall crop production capacity, is likely to bear the brunt of the biofuel-driven changes. In this paper, we set forth a method for developing a possible future landscape and evaluate changes in practices and production between base year (BY) 2001 and biofuel target (BT) 2020.... Understanding where changes are likely to take place on the landscape will enable the evaluation of trade-offs between economic benefits and ecosystem services allowing proactive conservation and sustainable production for human well-being into the future." [17]

"The primary objective of this study is to analyse the impact of possible changes in EU biofuels trade policies on global agricultural production and the environmental performance of the EU biofuel policy as concretised in the [European Union's Renewable Energy Directive (RED)]. The study pays particular attention to the ILUC effects, and the associated emissions, of the main feedstocks used for first-generation biofuels production."

"...World cropland increases by 0.07%, showing that there is indeed indirect land use change associated with the EU biofuels mandate."

"Finally, considerable uncertainty remains regarding the impact of the sustainability criteria on biofuels markets. The role of certification and the emergence of differentiation in biofuels, feedstock crops and land prices, based on carbon content and the respect of sustainability criteria, require more empirical research."[19]

2008 White Paper on Internationally Compatible Biofuels Standards Requested by the governments of the United States and Brazil and the EU. Produced by a joint task force after a six-month review process that considered thousands of pages of technical documents produced by ASTM International, the Brazilian Technical Standards Association (Associação Brasileira de Normas Técnicas or ABNT) and the European Committee for Standardization (CEN). Standards developed by these three SDOs are currently being used in support of biofuels commodities trading between nations.

Sustainability Criteria and Certification Systems for Biomass Production by Biomass Technology Group, prepared for DG TREN European Commission, February 2008. The objective of this report is to provide a basis upon which the European Commission could decide which actions to undertake in terms of proposing minimum sustainability criteria and certification systems for the production of biomass in the EU and for imported biomass.

LASEN's Review of Biofuels sustainability initiatives (Final draft) (LASEN, EPFL) by Dr. Edgard Gnansounou, Luis Panichelli and Juan David Villegas. The goal of this document is to describe and compare different initiatives on biofuels sustainability standards, in the intention of offering a useful tool for policy makers and different stakeholders already involved or wishing to be involved in liquid biofuels consumption and production. October 2007

"The RSB has developed a third-party certification system for biofuels sustainability standards, encompassing environmental, social and economic principles and criteria through an open, transparent, and multi-stakeholder process. National Wildlife Federation played a key role in establishing this global standard for the voluntary certification of biofuels and hopes the new system will promote good practices on the ground, and eventually help end biofuels production practices that are harmful to the climate and environment."

""Barbara Bramble, Senior Advisor for the International Climate and Energy Program at the National Wildlife Federation, and Chair of the Board of the RSB, said today:

"'We are pleased that the Manildra Group has achieved certification, under the RSB's global system of Principles and Criteria, for their wheat flour production operation, Shoalhaven Starches Pty Ltd. This is a significant achievement for the Australian-based project, which makes biofuels out of an otherwise potentially polluting waste stream, so it fulfills several objectives at once."

"For more information on the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels, visit www.rsb.org."[20]

First EU sustainability schemes for biofuels get the go-ahead, 19 July 2011 press release by the European Commission: "In order to receive government support or count towards mandatory national renewable energy targets, biofuels used in the EU, whether locally produced or imported, have to comply with sustainability criteria. These criteria aim at preventing the conversion of areas of high biodiversity and high carbon stock for the production of raw materials for biofuels. In practice this means that biofuels made of crops that have been grown on land that used to be rainforest or natural grassland with a unique ecosystem cannot be considered as sustainable. In addition, the greenhouse gas emissions over the whole production chain need to be at least 35% lower compared to fossil fuels. That threshold will increase over time."

"Companies can choose whether to demonstrate compliance with these sustainability requirements through national systems or by joining a voluntary scheme which is recognised by the Commission."

"After a detailed assessment made by the Commission and various improvements the following schemes were recognised:

"Its authors recommend the targets should be lifted temporarily until new safeguards are put in place for biofuels grown in Europe or imported."

"The Council is an independent body that was set up 20 years ago to ponder ethical issues raised by developments in biology and medicine."

"It has been studying biofuels for 18 months - specifically relating to the EU Renewable Energy Directive target that biofuels should account for 10% of transport fuel by 2020, a much-criticised mandate originally designed as part of Europe's strategy to combat climate change."

"Based on what it says is a set of ethical values which will be widely shared, the report says biofuels should:

From the abstract: "A large number of national and international initiatives lately experienced rapid development in the view of the biofuels and bioenergy targets announced in the European Union, United States and other countries worldwide. The main certification initiatives are analysed in detail, including certification schemes for crops used as feedstock for biofuels, the various initiatives in the European Union, United States and globally, to cover biofuels and/or biofuels production and use....Certification has the potential to influence positively direct environmental and social impact of bioenergy production. Key recommendations to ensure sustainability of biofuels/bioenergy through certification include the need of an international approach and further harmonisation, combined with additional measures for global monitoring and control. The effects of biofuels/bioenergy production on indirect land use change (ILUC) is still very uncertain; addressing the unwanted ILUC requires sustainable land use planning and adequate monitoring tools such as remote sensing, regardless of the end-use of the product."[24]

"Since 2007, the RSB brings together farmers, industries, NGOs and governments to get a broad consensus on the social and environmental requirements to ensure sustainable biofuel production. Based on these requirements, the RSB certification system provides the assurances operators need to guarantee the sustainability and traceability of their feedstocks and fuels. The new RSB system can put them on a path towards compliance and certification for EU market access and other regulated markets. On March 18, 2011, it received provisional recognition by the Government of Germany under its regulatory scheme for biofuels."

"'It’s one thing to say your product is sustainable and another to prove it,' said Barbara Bramble, Senior Advisor for the International Climate and Energy Program at the National Wildlife Federation. 'This new system makes it easy to differentiate between biofuels that are environmentally destructive and biofuels that deliver on the promise of sustainability.'"

"The certification system will be operated by RSB Services, which is the business arm of the RSB, providing access to the certification process, licensing, and auditors’ training among other activities."[25]

"The Renewable Fuels Agency says that just 31% of the biofuel supplied under the government's initiative to use fuel from plants to help tackle climate change met its green standard. For the remaining 69% of the biofuel, suppliers could not say where it came from, or could not prove it was produced in a sustainable way, the figures show."[26]

"The directive aims to protect tropical rain forests being cut down for biofuel crop production. But German industry associations had feared the failure of other EU states to implement the rule on time would mean Germany would not have been able to import non-certified rapeseed and rapeseed oil from other EU states in 2011."

"Germany imports about two million tonnes of rapeseed annually for food and biodiesel production."

"'The change is limited to June 2011 so we now hope that other EU states will also introduce the EU directive otherwise we will be faced with the problem again,' the UFOP spokesman said."[27]

"The body said fuel suppliers were meeting legally binding volume targets but some were falling 'well short' on achieving voluntary green standards."

"Figures released by the RFA show that just 33% of biofuels met an environmental standard, well short of the 50% goal for 2009/10."

"Currently under the RTFO, only the volume target is mandatory; the carbon savings and environmental standards goals were voluntary."

"However, this is set to change when the EU Renewable Fuel Directive (RED) comes into force at the end of the year, which will expect member states to ensure the biofuels meet both environmental and carbon saving criteria."

"Under RED, member states will also be expected to ensure that 10% of transport fuel is from a renewable source by 2020."[28]

"Many of the early efforts at green labeling utilized life cycle inventory data that were inapplicable to actual countries of product origin..."

"Here's a key cite from the Advertising Age article on this:"

"Christopher Cole, an advertising-law specialist and partner with law firm Manatt Phelps & Phillips in Washington, said the guides could render most of the more than 300 environmental seals of approval now in currency on packaging and products largely useless and possibly in violation of FTC standards."

If "squishy words" like sustainability get pulled in, the entire accountability aspect could be lost. All environmental performance standards are by definition relativistic, and 'my product/company is more sustainable than yours 'is a boring tar pit that sinks all who reach in."[29]

"In the draft document, the World Bank Group, one of the biggest sources of funding for developing countries, has set out the possible ways it can help move the sector onto a more sustainable footing."

"The Group proposes action on four major themes – policy and regulatory environment, sustainable private sector investment, benefit sharing with small holders and communities, and sustainability codes of practice."

"For nearly 20 years the Rainforest Alliance CertifiedTM seal has been used to designate farms and forestlands that meet the rigorous, third-party standards of the Sustainable Agriculture Network or the Forest Stewardship Council. These standards for environmental, social and economic sustainability are developed through an independent, participatory process."[31]

"This will help implement the EU's requirements that biofuels must deliver substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and should not come from forests, wetlands and nature protection areas. The rules for certification schemes are part of a set of guidelines explaining how the Renewable Energy Directive, coming into effect in December 2010, should be implemented."

"Biofuels must deliver greenhouse gas savings of at least 35% compared to fossil fuels, rising to 50% in 2017 and to 60%, for biofuels from new plants, in 2018."[32]

"The reviews describe the efforts of initiatives to address the environmental and social impacts of biofuel production at a variety of levels within the supply chain. The initiatives include regulatory frameworks, voluntary standards and certifications and scorecards.[35]

ISO holds US stakeholder meeting for the development of sustainability criteria for bioenergy, 22 April 2010 by BioenergyWiki staff (Melina Unger): The International Standards Organization (ISO) on 20 April held a one time input session open to US nonmember stakeholders such as NGOs, regulatory agencies, industry and farming organizations. The remainder of the standards development process will require ISO membership for participation.

"The decision to develop the standard responds to the growing international interest in bioenergy, and the current lack of globally harmonized sustainability criteria."

"ISO/PC 248 will bring together international expertise and state-of-the-art best practice to discuss the social, economic and environmental aspects of the production, supply chain, and use of bioenergy, and identify criteria that could prevent it from being environmentally destructive or socially aggressive."[36]

'Biofuels are not the answer to our energy woes - the UK should scrap its targets and must focus our attention on developing greener transport alternatives to cars, such as fast and affordable rail services and cycling and walking.'"[37]

"Teramoto states that if Brazilian producers adopt Imaflora recommendations - a package that even includes the commitment to preserve an area of the original forest - certifications may be granted in the first quarter of 2010. With the Sustainable Agriculture Certification seal in hand, producers, which export 90% to the United States, Canada, England and Chile, may charge a higher price of Unilever, which accounts for 80% of Brazilian black tea exports."

"But to the dismay of major environmental groups, that label, known as F.S.C., is facing a stiff challenge from a rival certification system supported by the paper and timber industry. At stake is the trust of consumers in the ever-expanding market for 'green' products."

"This week lawyers for ForestEthics, a nonprofit group dedicated to protecting forests, filed administrative complaints with the Federal Trade Commission and the Internal Revenue Service challenging the credibility of the rival label, known as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, or S.F.I."

"The complaints, which challenge S.F.I.’s nonprofit status, accuse the certification program of lax standards and deceptive marketing intended to obscure the standards and the S.F.I.’s financial ties to the forest industry."[39]

The "report concludes that if a renewable fuels mandate is to contribute effectively to reducing foreign oil dependence and curbing global warming, it must be reevaluated in light of changing circumstances. Changes in four broad policy categories--sustainability standards, advancing biofuels production and new technologies, creating green jobs, and promoting policy coherence across energy sectors--are detailed in the report."[40]

"The first meeting in the Southeast is scheduled for Jan. 28, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., at Southern Growth Policies Board in Durham, N.C.; a second meeting will follow the National Biodiesel Conference on Feb. 4 at the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco. A meeting in Iowa is being planned for the first week of March and one in Washington, D.C., is being planned for later in March, according to the RSB Americas Coordinator Matt Rudolf."

"The RSB is proposing a voluntary system to certify sustainable biofuel production. An implementation working group has already begun working on certification plans for the standards, which are expected to be adopted in June." [41]

U.S. needs environmental standards for biofuels, 2 October 2008 by mongabay.com: "The U.S. lacks criteria to ensure that cellulosic ethanol production will not harm the environment, warn scientists writing in the journal Science. The researchers say that with proper safeguards, cellulosic ethanol can help the U.S. meet its energy needs sustainably."

"The European Union is near to agreeing standards for biofuels that put human rights and endangered species high on the agenda"

"Biofuels that do not meet the EU's strict new standards will not be banned, but member states will not be able to count them towards their renewable fuels targets."

"But several key areas are still being debated, such as the level of greenhouse gas savings a biofuel would have to achieve as well as how to calculate the performance of different crops and different methods for converting them to biofuels."